Yesterday I wrote about some thermal mass related traps. Here's another one we see now and then. The top image shows good flat-topped caps. The bottom and inset has overheated bulged and damaged caps. These caps are RoHS compliant -... Read more

I mentioned thermal mass in a recent post and was thinking over my oatmeal that its a subject deserving of more attention. That's more attention to thermal mass, not to oatmeal. Although, oatmeal is a pretty healthy food so it... Read more

Everyone else seems to be writing about Toyota sudden acceleration problems, so I should probably do that too. Or should I? Personally, I have absolutely no solid information about what's going on with Toyota cars. There's an awful lot written,... Read more

The Screaming Circuits website will now offers instant online quoting and ordering of prototype and short-run production PCB assembly built and inspected to IPC-A-610 Class III standards. By default, Screaming Circuits assembles and inspects to IPC-A-610 Class II, but with... Read more

I write a fair amount about component foot prints / land patterns / CAD library components - whatever you call them. What are you supposed to call them anyway? I've heard them called all three of those things and a... Read more

When I was young, "Geek" was not cool. Neither was "Nerd". Working on cars was cool as was logging and shooting Bambi's uncles with high powered rifles, at least where I came from things were that way. On the other... Read more

Another tale from the sometimes kind of kooky world of prototypes. I think what happened here is that the board was originally laid out for caps with a smaller voltage rating (or even a smaller capacitance value). We're seeing things... Read more

Here's an interesting error that doesn't show up very often. Notice that the opening in the solder mask matches about what the copper land pads should be, but the pads themselves are really tiny. To start with, it's not an... Read more

I think this one has both some land pattern issues and some schematic issues. It's unfortunately pretty common to see footprints that are close, but not close enough to work. Looking at the data sheet here, there may be a... Read more

A little extra checking may take a little extra time, but it can save a lot in the end. This sort of thing just bums me out. I've done it and similar things a few times myself. I've used a... Read more